9 Leave Management Mistakes To Avoid This Year

Introduction

The new-age generation wants a perfect balance between their work and personal life. They want more purposeful workplaces and contribute evenly in every aspect of their life. This demands a comprehensive leave management system to be put in place. Without that, HR and employees might commit mistakes like miscalculation, remaining unbeknownst to leave balances, and under or overpaying someone for their workdays. That is why, if you’re an HR leader or talent manager, you need to focus on the leave management mistakes to avoid. 

Make this year full of strategies and approaches to streamline, strengthen, and standardise your leave management with flexible, inclusive, and diverse policies aligning with your company goals and giving staff the needed break when required. 

For more information on the leave management goof-ups to avoid, read the post ahead. It’s quite an interesting one, for sure. 

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What are the top 9 leave management mistakes to avoid right away?

• Outdated software that does not let you customise and standardise leave policies. 

When organisations do not use updated leave management software, employees and reporting managers suffer in terms of punctuality and productivity. This is one of the common mistakes organisations commit when they have limited knowledge of what type of leave management software to implement, customise, and configure. 

But after standardising leave management policies into an adjustable system, employers can track leaves on time. Employees will not be misusing allotted and permitted leaves. The system would not allow them to take leaves more than initially granted. 

• Not letting people take impromptu leaves.

One of the flaws in the leave management system is that there is no provision for unpaid leaves and leave of absence. Employees can have certain emergencies despite exhausting their leave balance. 

Once in a great while, they must be allowed to take impromptu leave and cover for the same on the other day or with extra working hours. 

The leave management system should be flexible and adjustable. The modern leave management module allows you to do that if you’re a super admin and if the management approves. 

This approach shows that your organisation cares for the employee and their personal life hiccups or issues, which may occur, once in a blue moon. 

Otherwise, if you look over this issue, then you will end up with another leave management system goof-ups to avoid this year.

• Asking too many reasons for a leave from every staff member.

You have to let go of the micromanagement when it comes to employees asking you for permission to take a leave. When you, or the reporting manager, ask for too many reasons, it is a flawed process. 

Not everyone is comfortable openly discussing the reason for them to apply for a leave. It can cause privacy issues. Therefore, a leave management system should be in place to carefully categorise different types of leave and not ask the employee unnecessarily for a reason too many times. 

A simple comment box for stating the reason must be enough. It must be up to the employee to fill as long as they are still not exhausting all the leaves in their balance. 

• Putting discrimination into allotting and granting leaves. 

Another one of the top leave management mistakes to avoid and forbid committing this year is configuring leave policies with discrimination in place. 

This can land organisations in serious issues with the workforce or the labour union. Employers and HR policymakers must be careful about writing leave rules appropriately and considering DEIB matters. 

However, there should not be any discrimination, like allocating more leave only to a specific type of gender, race, orientation, or religion-based people at work. 

Also, the leave policy must match the standards released by the state or national government to avoid any legal issues in the future. 

• Having no communication system in place for staff to ask for leaves. 

Another dire leave management mistake is having no communication system in place for the staff to request a leave. When they do not have a leave application system in place, they either end up over or underutilising their leaves. 

This is totally an unfair practice on each party’s part. Thus, an organisation must allow clear communication through an intranet like ours. Using the intranet, the staff member can easily contact the HR helpdesk and also their reporting manager. 

They can always check their leaves balance to avoid miscommunication and take care of the leaves they want to apply for. 

• Asking employees to work on holidays or allotted leaves. 

Organisations asking employees to work on holidays or leaves are committing dire mistakes. This can land them into legal conflicts and grievance complaints from employees who are facing this kind of harassment. 

However, employees must have proof that the organisation is making them work on public holidays unnecessarily. 

To avoid this grave mistake, implement a leave management system with configurable policies. Roll out the policy to every new and existing hire whenever there is an update. Make them digitally acknowledge this policy to avoid further conflicts in the future.

• Not allowing comp off or paying for overtime hours. 

Certain departments, sectors, or industries require you to work overtime at times, like banking, insurance, financial institutions, manufacturing, PR, media and entertainment, etc. 

Organisations in such industries must create a stringent overtime policy. They must either allot comp offs or pay the staff for their overtime hours. 

A virtual leave management software has all the information regarding this policy for employees, be they remote, part-timers, wage workers, or gig workers. They can read the policy and then accordingly apply for a leave or work overtime. 

Otherwise, they must reach out to the grievance department to put forward unfair practices when it comes to asking people to work for extended hours without prior notice. 

• Not having a system for synching the leave data with attendance and payroll.

Leave management data has to sync with daily attendance and, ultimately, with payslip calculation. Otherwise, organisations end up paying too little or too much to the staff. This causes operational losses for the firm and creates a bad reputation within the organisation. 

To prevent this from happening and ultimately impacting the turnover rate, the best alternative to manual leave management is to shift to a virtual and completely integrated leave management software. 

It syncs data from all modules automatically. No manual intervention is required from the payroll or reporting manager. 

In fact, it allows payroll managers to generate pay slips for everyone in 1 click after each reporting manager or department head locks the period attendance data for the staff. 

• Not giving people access to apply for leave at any time, from anywhere. 

When an organisation is glowing global or scaling rapidly, it will most probably start hiring more specialists, remote workers, consultants, or part-timers. 

Thus, it has to take into account that people will be living in different corners of the world and applying for a leave at different time zones from multiple mobile devices. 

Thus, the virtual leave management system has to be compatible with all modern mobile devices for a seamless process. 

Otherwise, it can cause serious damage when the staff is not able to go on leave when there’s a serious emergency. This could also hamper the work-life balance of a staff member if they fail to apply for a leave from anywhere or at any time. 

Conclusion

The blog post above stated 9 leave management mistakes to avoid this year. There could be many mistakes, depending on the scenario of your workplace culture. But not to worry. We've got you covered. Our leave management module is one of the best in town. 

Organisations like Kotak, Delhivery, Dhruva, Poweroll, etc., are already using it. It’s the right time that you think over and shift to uKnowva and prevent such goof-ups from happening in the first place next time. 

Contact us now for a leave management demo. 

FAQs on Leave Management Goof-Ups to Avoid

Q: What's the impact of inconsistent leave policies?

A: Inconsistencies can lead to confusion, dissatisfaction, and potential legal issues. Maintain clarity for a smooth process.

Q: What mistakes should be avoided during leave application?

A: Employees should avoid last-minute requests, and HR must ensure timely processing to prevent disruptions.

Q: How can technology help in leave management?

A: Utilising leave management software automates processes, reducing errors and improving efficiency.

Q: What is the significance of clear communication?

A: Transparent communication avoids misunderstandings, ensuring both employees and HR are on the same page.

Q: How does inaccurate record-keeping impact leave management?

A: Inaccuracies can lead to over or underutilisation of leave balances, causing payroll and scheduling issues.

Q: How can managers avoid favouritism in leave approvals?

A: Implement a fair and transparent leave approval process, where decisions are based on policy adherence and business needs.